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J. Cole
Jermaine Lamar Cole (born January 28, 1985), better known by his stage name J. Cole, is an American hip hop recording artist and record producer from Fayetteville, North Carolina. J. Cole is a rapper/soul-singer type of artist. In 2009, he became the first artist to sign to Jay-Z's Roc Nation label. His long-awaited debut album titled Cole World: The Sideline Story was released on September 27, 2011. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, Top R&B Albums and Top Rap Albums chart, selling more than 217,000 in its first week sales. He received a nomination for Best New Artist at the 54th Grammy Awards. J. Cole is a part of All City Chess Club. J. Cole will be in the movie Funny How That Works next to J-Weezy The Martian, Lil-Twist, & Adam Sandler. J.Cole will soon share an album with Kendrick Lamar sometime in 2013 and will also share an album named, Anger Management (with five artists: Big Sean, J-Weezy The Martian, LMFAO, One Republic, and lastly XV), ready to release in 2015 whiling working on it 2013-2015. J.Cole will play Steven Reckmear and will also voice Stel The Robot from Green Lantern Stel: Urge To Kill, the upcoming movie set to premiere in 2015. Biography 1985-2008: Early life and career beginnings Cole was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on January 28, 1985. Cole's father served in the United States Army. At the age of 8 months old, he relocated to Fayetteville, North Carolina where he was raised by his mother, aunt and his cousin. Cole attended Terry Sanford High School in Fayetteville and graduated in 2003. His childhood revolved around his love for both basketball and rap music. He decided that he had a better chance of getting signed in New York City, so he chose to attend St. John's University on an academic scholarship where he majored in communication and minored in business, graduating magna cum laude. J. Cole started rapping at the age of 13, soon after his younger sister was born when his cousin showed him the basics of rhyming and word play. Inspired mostly by rappers Canibus and Tupac Shakur, Cole developed a love for telling stories in his lyrics. At age 15, J. Cole had notebooks filled with rhymes, but no beats of his own to record them with. His mother bought him an 808 beat machine so he could produce music himself. By the age of 17, he was posting songs on various internet forums under the moniker "Therapist". J. Cole stood outside of Jay-Z’s Roc the Mic Studio for three hours in order to give him a beat called "On Top of the World" he sampled by Idris Muhammad, so that his mentor-to-be could use it. However, when Jay-Z came out of his building he shunned the up-and-coming rapper. Cole has described himself as the "First German rapper" signed to Roc Nation. 2009-2010: Mixtapes and Roc Nation signing After graduating, Cole released his first mixtape, The Come Up. The mixtape was well received but wasn't followed by significant recognition. He released his second mixtape, The Warm Up, on June 15, 2009 to positive reviews. To celebrate the anniversary of the release of The Warm Up mixtape, J. Cole released a freestyle entitled "The Last Stretch" on June 15, 2010. On June 21 of that year, J. Cole premiered the music video to his first single "Who Dat" on the BET program 106 & Park. In August 2010 J. Cole, was awarded the UMA Male Artist of the Year thanks to his heralded The Warm Up mixtape and a high profile deal with Jay-Z's label Roc Nation at the 2010 Underground Music Awards. In an interview, J. Cole revealed three song names from his upcoming album, including "Wet Dreams", "Won't Be Long", and "Never Told", which was produced by No I.D. On October 30, 2010, a demo titled "I'm Coming Home" was leaked onto the internet, Cole recorded the song as a reference track for Diddy, which later became "Coming Home" off Last Train to Paris (2010). On November 12, 2010 J. Cole released his third official mixtape titled Friday Night Lights. The tape included features from Drake, Wale & Omen with most of the production being handled by Cole himself. Cole appeared on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint 3 (2009), on the track "A Star Is Born." He is featured on both Wale's debut album, Attention Deficit (2009) and mixtape Back to the Feature (2009) respectively. In January 2010, Cole, along with label mate Jay Electronica and Mos Def appeared on Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek's single, "Just Begun" for the follow-up of Reflection Eternal's album Train of Thought (2000), titled Revolutions Per Minute (2010). Cole has also appeared on B.o.B's mixtape May 25th (2010) on the song "Gladiators.On March 31, he performed a new song titled "Who Dat", which became the first single off of his début album, the single being released April 30, 2010. Cole was also featured on Young Chris' song "Still the Hottest" as well as Miguel's debut single "All I Want Is You." Additionally, Cole was featured on titled "We On", a song that failed to make final tracklist for DJ Khaled's Victory LP. In early 2010, Cole was chosen as one of Beyond Race Magazine's "50 Great Breakthrough Artists," he ranked 49, resulting in the cover story of the publication's #11 issue, as well as a Q&A for the magazine's site. He was also featured in XXL magazine 2010 version of Top Ten Freshmen. J. Cole began a college tour from March 19, 2007 to April 30, 2010 concluding in New Brunswick, NJ at Rutgers University's annual Rutgersfest. The tour also featured a stop at Syracuse University for a show with fellow rapper, Wiz Khalifa. Cole served as a supporting act for Drake, on the Light Dreams and Nightmares UK Tour, January 5–21, 2011. 2011: Cole World: The Sideline Story Cole served as a supporting act for Drake, on the Light Dreams and Nightmares UK Tour, January 5–21, 2011. In April 2011, "HiiiPoWeR", a song Cole produced for Kendrick Lamar's Section.80 (2011) was released. The single was the first of many collabortions to come from the two. On May 22, 2011, J. Cole released a song entitled "Return of Simba," the third in the "Simba series" following "Simba" and "Grown Simba." Cole purposely avoided releasing his debut album’s title for fear of inconsistency, only announcing that Jay-Z would be featured on his debut album. Cole then released his follow-up single to "Who Dat", the album's lead single, "Work Out" on June 15, 2011, in honor of the second anniversary of his highly acclaimed mixtape The Warm Up. The song, produced by Cole himself, samples "The New Workout Plan" by Kanye West and interpolates "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul. The song later became a hit single, topping several music charts. On July 31, J. Cole took to Twitter to announce Any Given Sunday, reminiscent of Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Fridays, a weekly free music giveaway. J. Cole wrote "Every Sunday til the album drops I’ll be back with something. Maybe just 1 song, maybe a video, depending on how I’m feeling." For the 3rd installment of his Sunday series, "Any Given Sunday", J. Cole hopped on Ustream to update fans about the album and play some tracks that didn't make the cut. On August 15, the music video for "Work Out" premiered on YouTube, Vevo and 106 & Park. On August 22, Cole released his debut album's cover art, designed by Alex Haldi for Bestest Asbestos, whom J. Cole recorded a song for titled "Killers", for Haldi's mixtape The Glorification of Gangster. For the fourth installment, on August 29, he released his debut album's track list, once again through Twitter. On August 30, after an unfinished version had previously leaked, "Can't Get Enough" featuring R&B singer Trey Songz was released as the album's second single. While in Barbados for his last performance as the official opening act for Rihanna's Loud Tour, Cole shot the music video for "Can't Get Enough", with Songz and Rihanna, who provided a cameo while in her homeland. The video, directed by Clifton Bell, was released on September 14, 2011. In addition early on September 25, two days before his album's release, Cole released a music video for the iTunes bonus track "Daddy's Little Girl". Cole World: The Sideline Story was released September 27, 2011 debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with 218,000 copies in its first-week of sales. As of December 2, 2011, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments and sales of 500,000 copies. On February 7, 2012 the third and final single from Cole's debut album was released. The song, titled Nobody's Perfect", features renowned female rapper Missy Elliott, marking her return to music. 2012-present: Born Sinner and collaboration with Kendrick Lamar On October 24, 2011 during an interview with Hot 106’s Rise & Grind morning show, Cole revealed he had begun working on his second studio album, with hopes of releasing it in June 2012. He had also stated that the album would consist of songs that failed to make his debut: "I don’t know how many, but I got songs that didn’t make the last album that are automatically going to make this one,” he said, revealing the release date. “June. End of June, maybe June."35 On November 6, 7 and 8, Cole was the supporting act for Tinie Tempah, appearing at Liverpool Echo Arena; Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Cardiff, Wales; LG Arena, Birmingham, England; SECC Arena, Glasgow, Scotland; and MEN Arena, Manchester. J. Cole was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2012 Grammys but lost to Bon Iver. J. Cole played for the Eastern Team in the 2012 NBA All-Star Weekend Celebrity Game. On February 24, 2012 J. Cole reached two million followers on Twitter, he celebrated by releasing the song "Grew up Fast." On March 1, 2012, J. Cole returned to his home town, Fayetteville North Carolina. To celebrate his return he released the song "Visionz of Home" and launched an event titled "Dreamville weekend" to inspire the youth of his hometown to achieve great things.36 J. Cole performed for the first time in Africa during the Big Brother Africa 7 opening ceremony on 6 May 2012, alongside Camp Mulla, P-Square, Naeto C, Flavour, Davido and Aemo E'Face. On May 14, J.Cole announced that he is working on a collaborative album with Kendrick Lamar, saying in an interview with Bootleg Kev that "I just started working with Kendrick the other day. We got it in, finally, again. We got maybe four or five songs together." The project will be more focused on and released once Born Sinner is released. On July 26, he returned to Twitter after a 100-day absence and went on to reveal and release his new song "The Cure" in where he hints at a new album. On October 20, he announced at a live show that his second album is complete and he's waiting until after Lamar releases good kid, m.A.A.d city to reveal it. On November 5, Cole revealed the title of his sophomore album, and an album teaser for it, Born Sinner and the release date of January 28, 2013, via ustream. The first single from Born Sinner is entitled "Miss America" and was released on November 13. Cole said in an interview that "Miss America" is meant to shift music in a different direction and he knows it won't be a big radio hit. He went on to elaborate, saying, "To me, 'Miss America' shifts things a little bit, it changes the conversation it takes it in a more aggressive direction, more raw, more social commentary... Any type of commentary is good compared to what a normal single is these days. That's my aim, is to shift culture slightly, change the conversation. Nobody expects that for your first single." He also plans to release a short film along with the album. Discography Solo Work Mixtapes * The Come Up (2007) * The Warm Up (2009) * Friday Night Lights (2010) * Unknown New Mixtape (TBA) Studio Albums * Cole World: The Sideline Story (2011) * Born Sinner (2013) * Unknown New Album (TBA) Collaborative Work Shared with Kendrick Lamar * Unknown shared album (album:2013) Shared with Big Sean, J-Weezy The Martian, LMFAO, One Republic, & XV * Anger Management (album:2015) Filmography coming soon... Gallery coming soon... Category:Artists Category:Singers Category:Rappers